03-13-2004, 10:24 PM

I just got a used TI 400. I am pretty happy so far. Looks nice. I am having a tough time installing fink and using it. i will figure it out here soon. I got the book Unix fo Mac OS X Panther. So hoperfully, I can get going from there. It has been easy to use. I hope I am little upset about how long the install took and how much space it took. I have a spare 20 gig 3.5 laying around. I am going to get a firewire drive kit for that. Oh yeah firefox is the best web browser. I have 6 months of nothing to do soon. I will be in Panama for work so I will get plugging around down there. Hopefully, this will be as cool as Linux if not its still a beautiful OS.

03-13-2004, 10:50 PM

I use both Linux and Mac OS X. The Mac to me is by far the best! And the Safari browser is awesome!

03-13-2004, 11:01 PM

I don't know why I can not get this fink to work. I am a little disappointed because I have been using Linux for the last 4 or 5 years and I thought I could ease right in. I am not sure what I have been doing wrong. But I will say. I didn't really too much research before I got this powerbook. I bought the newest OS and it was easy to get everything standard going. Boot time is a little slow. It's nice and easy. I haven't used a Mac sinc hight school. Any tips......

I just like Mozilla stuff. They do a great job. Mozilla always amazes me. Safari works good. But you always stick with what you like I guess. I am hoping to get W3M to work.

03-14-2004, 01:03 AM

Yeah OSX does have long boot times... you get used to it. (It's not hard, considering you have to restart maybe once a month.) Fink has a help page built in (man Fink?)... if you're familiar with Linux it shouldn't be expecially hard. In theory.

03-14-2004, 03:08 AM

While I too am new to mac, I have a decent working knowledge of Linux. I noticed you were talking about the slow boot process in 10.3.2 and thought I'd share what I found in other mac forums....

Faster Startup Time in Panter.
As an administrator, launch the Terminal
Type the following with out quotes; "sudo ln -s /System/Library/Extensions/BootCache.kext/Contents/Resources/BootCacheControl /usr/sbin/BootCacheControl "

Then reboot twice. You should notice faster startup times.

I tried this and it actually cut about 15 secs off the my startup times.

hope this helps!!

Good Luck

03-14-2004, 02:49 PM

I'm assuming that cuts out something that is on by default - from the looks of it some sort of cache. Have you noticed any drop in performance of the computer after boot?

03-14-2004, 03:56 PM

I haven't notice a change in performance.... What I think it does is create a link of the bootcache file in the /usr/sbin/ directory thus reducing the time required for the runlevel to locate and manage. I guess I could research and find out, but it is not replacing anything, just a link...

03-14-2004, 04:21 PM

Ok, here are the details of what is going on;

in 10.3.2 it appears that the /etc/rc boot script shows a call to /usr/sbin/BootCacheControl which is not there by default.
BootCacheControl is a kernel extension which caches boot information to speed up the boot time but since its being callled from a location which does not exist it never runs, thus creating the link, allows the script to read the file correctly and implement it.

There are posts on other forums saying to copy (cp) the BootCacheControl file, however if any changes are make to it, you would have to re-copy the file again. Creating the link is just like creating an alias.

Hope this clarifies everything.

03-14-2004, 07:41 PM

I haven't really messed around with it too much. I am waiting until I get down to Panama. I will have nothing to do except mess around with my computer. It should be fun. It has been a nice experience so far. The one button mouse part was a little weird, but I figured out how to use it the way I want to. I have to learn all the shortcuts. I will probally get the OS X Panther Missing Manual. Everyone loves that book. The boot time thing isn't a big deal. I am just used to faster boot times. I will upgrade the ram in a month or so. I don't think I will put the full 1 gig in there. I don't think I will see too much of a performance difference. What about everyone else? Does 1 gig really give you a boost? How about the firewire drive kit? Do you guys used it? Do you like it? Thanks for the help here on the site. Its great.

03-14-2004, 09:17 PM

I got it to work easy as pie. I just didn't read a few directions the right way.